


Before I Let You Go

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Heterosexual Sex, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Erotic Couplings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2018-10-27 17:11:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10813281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: Harry and Ginny share one last night before they must part... "I realized then that I had nothing left to lose that I didn't want her to have."





	Before I Let You Go

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Based on [this picture.](http://www.mudblood428.com/art/revisionmed.jpg)  


* * *

My life has been a series of cataclysmic events. Those keystone moments that change everything – that break up all the notions you’ve built up in your head about the way things are and open your eyes to a reality you never knew existed - I’ve had more than my share of them. Like the day Hagrid told me I was a wizard. The day Cedric died and I realized that I no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t save everyone. The moment I saw Sirius pass through the veil in the Department of Mysteries and the night that Dumbledore prevented me from saving his life….  
  
Nearly a lifetime later, there is one moment I revisit in my mind more than any others whenever I need a reminder of how unlikely my existence really is and how much I actually have to be grateful for.

It was the night before Ron, Hermione, and I were to depart from the Burrow for Godric’s Hollow and I couldn’t sleep. At my request, Ron’s parents had given me the pull-out bed on the first floor; Bill and Fleur’s wedding had had something of an averse affect on me and I didn’t want company while I simmered over what it was like watching Ginny dance with the French bloke whose name I couldn’t pronounce. He had come with Gabrielle Delacour and left her midway through the evening to chase after Ginny. After that, I abandoned trying to learn his name and thenceforth referred to him in my mind as “that bloody berk”. The bastard.   
  
I wondered whether she minded his attentions and quickly realized that thinking about it would keep me up indefinitely.

I rolled over and buried my face into the pillows. Summer rain was lashing against the windows but it did nothing to help the uncomfortable muggy heat that got under my skin and seemed to multiply my irritation at everything. I recall thinking that comfort was a commodity that I didn’t deserve. After all… I _had_ let the Bloody Berk dance with Ginny among other things I regretted.  
  
Suddenly, I felt the mattress sink beside me.   


"Who's there?" I said loudly, searching the darkness and reaching for my glasses.  
  
Someone struck a match, and I could discern the warm glow of candlelight beside me on the side table. Fitting the glasses on my face, she came into focus.   


"Ginny… what are you doing here?"  
  
She was in a long button-down nightshirt, her hair in two loose plaits on either side of her face, with a soft blush on her cheeks brought on no doubt by the heat. She placed her hand over my mouth and hushed me. "You have to keep quiet," she whispered. “You’ll wake up half the house shouting like that."   


I frowned at her indignantly. "I wasn’t shouting. You startled me, is all," I asserted. Suddenly, the significance of the situation dawned on me and I was momentarily anxious and confused. "It's so late," I whispered as I glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to find any one of Ginny’s six elder brothers glaring disapprovingly at us . "Ron would - no - your entire _family_ would kill me if they knew you were here!"  


"Who says they need to know?" she whispered with a smile, raising an eyebrow at me. Under any normal circumstances I might have readily returned her sneaky grin, but then this circumstance was anything but normal.   


"It must be three in the morning…"  
  
For a moment her eyes lowered and fixed upon the locket around my neck – the one I’d procured from the dark cave the night Dumbledore died. "You're leaving tomorrow," she whispered.   


Something in the way she spoke stung at my heart. "They told you, then," I murmured guiltily.  
  
"Ron and Hermione didn't tell me anything. Your bags are packed."

Stupid me.  
  
"Right…."

For several moments we sat in silence; there were too many thoughts running through my head for me to say anything useful. Part of me wished she would leave me alone. That way I could loiter in the torture chamber between my ears in peace. But the other part....  
  
"I expect you'll be gone for some time," she said in a restrained voice, interrupting my thoughts. 

I looked away from her. “Not necessarily. Maybe. I don’t know…”  
  
"I see. Well... I only came to say goodbye."

Goodbye. She came to say _goodbye._ Something about that one word felt like a slap in the face. "Ginny, please don't-"  
  
Again, she pressed her fingers against my lips, stopping my mouth. There was a gleam in her eye that meant for me to understand that I was not supposed to talk just now, and so I didn't. At that moment, my heart began to race for reasons I don't think I quite understood just then.

She began to undo her braids, drawing the ribbons out of her hair and running careful fingers through each plait until her long ginger locks were falling freely down her back and over her chest. She looked so lovely that it almost pained me to watch her, and I recognized the same ache in her as she bit her lip and looked at me with eyes that foresaw her imminent loneliness. I hated myself for it.  
  
Then, her hands traveled to the neck of her nightshirt and started to undo each button, one at a time; all the while, her eyes on me. In our other private moments, she had done the same - but this would be quite different. I could tell there was nothing underneath, no buffer to let us pretend that we were being innocent while our hands explored one another over a barrier of fabric - even if we'd seen more of one another's bare skin than anyone else's. Suddenly aware of what she was about to do, I began to both panic and become extraordinarily aroused.

Before she'd finished unbuttoning, she pulled back my covers and swung a leg over me to sit on my lap. Before long, she had reached the last button and paused, looking at me. Waiting.  
  
Taking my cue, I propped myself up. Without thinking, I slid one hand under her nightshirt and gently slipped it off of her shoulders, baring her naked body. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of her.

"You're... beautiful," I breathed, and I meant it.  
  
Her hand traveled up the side of my face and landed on my scar, tracing the zigzag down my forehead with her fingertip. "So are you," she whispered back.

She removed my glasses from my face and, close enough to see her smile, I stared at her as if I were seeing her for the first time. I brought my hand to her mouth and touched the corner of it, wanting nothing more than to taste her there.  
  
Her lips descended upon me and we kissed in a way I'd only ever dreamed of before. Her mouth moved hungrily against mine, not a trace left of the teasing, youthful kisses we'd shared before, and I began to lose my breath trying to take in every touch and commit the sensations to memory. She took charge; our lips locked, she slipped her hands under my shirt and helped me pull it off, after which point she leaned into me, skin against skin, lowering me back down onto the pillows. I was gloriously aware of her every curve pressed against me. Her hair fell all around us like a curtain, blocking out the light - blocking out the world... I whimpered into her mouth.

"Shh," she said between kisses, "we have to be quiet.... We'll get in trouble...."  
  
I didn't realize then how difficult that order would be.

I rolled her onto her back, bringing my hand against her cheek and running my mouth and tongue along her neck, growing ever more delirious as I breathed in her flowery scent and heard her try to squelch her voice. At some point I discovered that I was subconsciously rocking against her.  
  
At that moment, she brought her face next to mine and breathed into my ear, "make love to me, Harry."

"What?"   
  
I swear, I thought I heard her wrong.

"I said," murmured Ginny breathlessly, "make love to me." She ran a hand through my hair - a gesture that made my blood rush to all the wrong places - and I could see her desire in the deep recesses of her brown eyes.  
  
My rational brain kicked back into focus. "Ginny... we've never gone that far before," I argued. "Don't you think it's too soon?"

"I'm not a fool, Harry," she murmured. "You're not leaving tomorrow because you're going on holiday."  
  
She had thus rendered me speechless.

"Give me tonight," she said softly, "before I let you go and I never see you again."  
  
Overwhelmed by the emotion in her voice, I lighted a tender kiss on her forehead and smoothed her hair away from her face with one hand. I realized then that I had nothing left to lose that I didn't want her to have. "As you wish," I whispered, moved by the hard, blazing look that I'd come to know so well. I propped myself on my side next to her and removed the rest of my clothes.

We were face to face now, and I felt anxious and embarrassed and vulnerable and lord knows what else as I lay there naked beside her.  
  
"Are you scared?" she said finally.

"Terrified."  
  
“I wasn't talking about Voldemort."

"Neither was I."  
  
She averted her eyes and looked apprehensive. 

"What about you?" I inquired.  
  
"I'm nervous," she admitted. "But… I trust you." 

I couldn't help but smile.   
  
"Do you trust me, Harry?" she asked timidly.

"Of course I do," I answered. My hand ventured over to her cheek and brushed a strand of hair from her face. "I'm only terrified because...” I paused and swallowed hard. “Because I love you."  
  
It's amazing to think that I was only seventeen when those words came out of my mouth. Maybe it was because I’d had enough brushes with Death to know its opposite when I saw it, or perhaps it was the fact that I'd lived so much of my life without love, but the words meant as much then as they do now. It scared me because it was so different from anything else I’d ever felt, but more than that, I was terrified for the association it had always had with the moments in my life where I’d lost someone I cared about. As a result, love was identifiable in particular for the pain it always stirred in my chest. 

She pulled herself close to me bringing her arm around my waist and she linked her leg with mine, tangling us together. The feeling made my heart skip a beat in my chest, and she pressed her lips against my collarbone. It felt so wonderful I could barely stand it.  
  
Inch by inch, she kissed her way to my lips. Eyes closed, breathing sparse, I was barely coherent when she reached them. Running her tongue lightly along my upper lip, she brought her hands to my chest letting them linger over my heart. Surely she could feel it pounding relentlessly under her palm. Just then, in a tone that still resonates in my memory, she sighed into my mouth and whispered, "I've always loved you, Harry."

I can’t explain how she had done it, but she had set my soul aflame with those few words. Seized by some outside force, I feverishly kissed her back and, in the next few moments, I would pour every ounce of myself into pleasing her, relishing those bits where she would lose command over her voice and let it accidentally rise above a whisper – endangering our secrecy, but provoking in me a desire I’d scarce believed possible. I became acquainted with all of Ginny Weasley that night; my fingers memorized every curve, every texture of her body, from the slope of her clenched jaw to the slick warmth between her legs. I had stopped thinking, committing my every thought and motion to the task at hand. After a duration of time I couldn’t hope to measure, Ginny grew wild and frustrated and roughly pulled me on top of her.  
  
I could see in her face that she would make me repent for my actions. Trapping me between her thighs, she looked fiercely into my eyes and began to move her hips against mine. I was still outside her, the friction of her against me slowly driving me to madness, and she watched, biting her lip in determination as I little by little came undone at the seams in her arms. I wanted to cry out, to call out her name for the world to hear, but smothering the impulse to raise my voice only compounded my ecstasy. It would not be long now.

And Ginny knew it. Her rhythm slowed and her expression changed from bright and burning to a dark and smoldering passion. Bringing her hand to my face, she staid my movement and, guiding me with her leg, she shifted me over.  
  
I was exactly where she wanted me. I looked down at her and felt myself suddenly dizzy and lightheaded.   


"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked, catching my breath.  
  
Winded, she turned her head and pressed her lips to the inside of my arm, watching my face all the while. "Yes…. Are you?"   


To say I wanted to make love to Ginny was an understatement. "I don't want to hurt you," I whispered.  
  
"You never could," she breathed, gazing at me with an intensity that made me shake. It stands out in my memory as the last thing she said before the moment when everything changed. All my life I would remember the way Ginny looked at me the night before I left her and told me that I could never hurt her...   


Then, in some beautiful, reckless gesture of want and need, Ginny brought her arms around me, gripping my back, and pulled me inside of her. We gasped in tandem at the sensation - at once every muscle in my body was on fire and I fell against her, my face buried in her hair. I couldn't believe how she felt. Her body arched into mine and fingertips sunk into my skin – she was all around me – and at that moment, I was suddenly incredibly aware of how alive she was. Her breath matching my own, fast and heavy, her heartbeat pulsing in quick counterpoint to mine, so much skin glistening with perspiration under fading candlelight... She was motion and heat and pleasure and everything I never realized I always wanted and couldn't survive without. I wanted her so badly it hurt.  
  
I felt something wet run onto my cheek and pushed myself up to look at her. Tears were sliding down Ginny's face.

"We should... stop," I panted. "You're in pain..."  
  
"No," she countered fervently, "don't stop.... Please."   


I can't qualify what happened next because it felt almost as if it was happening without me - like my body had gone into automatic pilot and I was just along for the ride. "Gently," she murmured into my ear, and I obeyed. She'd do something different with her hips or her hands and I'd follow her, suspecting I would lose all direction and reason if I didn't. I can't for the life of me understand how it all came so naturally to us. For the first few moments, I took my time, savoring the gentle pull as I drew myself in and out of her. We moved through each other slowly as if we knew it would be over too soon, but I wondered how long I could last before the monster in my chest consumed me.  
  
It was definitely a practice in restraint.   


"Ginny," I moaned against her neck in a voice I barely recognized.  
  
I had become desperate at last. My hand traveled up her side until I reached the hand she'd draped on the pillow behind her head, threading my fingers between hers and gripping them tightly. She seemed to understand the urgency and squeezed back, reaching behind me with her free hand and mercifully pulling herself off the mattress into me. My eyes squeezed shut, and I dove deeper.

“Oh… God,” I gasped, driving harder into her. “How are you… doing this to me?”  
  
“You’re doing it to me too…” she panted.

“I… need… you…”  
  
“You have me….”

“I’m so… so close…”  
  
“Just… let… go…”

“ _Ginny…_ ”  
  
“ _Open your eyes._ ”  
  
My eyes snapped open and I was therewith flung onto a different plane of consciousness. As if every thread of my being had broken into an explosion of light and sound, I no longer felt myself in my own body. My existence had fractured into a million pieces at the same time as I felt myself unbelievably complete. She took me in, all of me, and in one final push, I collapsed on top of her, blinded and utterly spent.

Every synapse on my skin burning, I felt Ginny’s arms circle around me with acute sensitivity. Gently stroking my matted hair, she held me as if I might break, and for a moment, I thought I could. Never before had I experienced that kind of rapture and it shook me to my core, awakening me to a world I didn’t know existed where evil and death could not touch us. Violently trembling, I brought my hands down and tried to pull myself away.  
  
“No,” she gasped. “Not yet…. Don’t leave me yet…” Her voice was shaking.

Without a sound, I mustered the strength to lift my head and look at her. I’d never seen anything so resplendently beautiful in my life. Her eyes glittered and her skin was flushed and dusted with perspiration, and she gazed into my face with eyes that mirrored all the love I felt for her. I remember thinking that she no longer looked like the little girl I’d saved from the Chamber of Secrets. In the course of that one night, we’d stepped out of our childhood forever.  
  
I kissed Ginny’s lips once more. “Never,” I heard myself say, “I’ll never leave you… On my life, I swear it. I’ll come back to you…. ” 

The next day, Ron, Hermione, and I departed for Godric’s Hollow, leaving Ginny behind. Not a year later, I would stare Death in the face and defeat Voldemort, returning a broken man with only one hope left to revive me: the dream of being in Ginny’s arms again – free at last.   
  
Years have passed since that night. Looking back on it, I often think I only survived because I promised her I would come back. I swore I would never leave her. 

I never have. I never will.  
  


 


End file.
